Bailiwick of Conti
Situated on the eponymous island (49.179°N 2.107°W), Conti is a communal republic and mercantile city-state of industrious seafarers devoted to the advancement of commerce, the principles of good government and the preservation of libertas. |connectedresources = |bonusresources = }} Instrument of Government The Instrument of Government promotes good governance through deliberative policy-making mechanisms and a collegial exercise of power, centred on the States of Conti and the Council of Ten. The States of Conti is the unicameral legislature of the bailiwick. It consists of 100 deputies elected for a single term of seven years. The bailiwick's bilateral treaties are automatically suspended at the end of a legislature and must be renewed by the newly elected body if they are not to lapse. The Council of Ten is the executive governing body of the bailiwick. Its members, elected from among the States of Conti (of which it is a constituent part), are: *The Chancellor, Protector of the Seal of Conti *The Controller-General of Finances *The Paymaster *The Councillor of State for Commerce *The Councillor of State for War *The Councillor of State for Education *The Councillor of State for Technology *The Councillor of State for Health *The Councillor of State for the Environment *The Councillor of State for Works The Bailiff, '''elected by co-optation from among the Council of Ten for a single one-year term, presides over sessions of the council and performs ceremonial functions. The councillor of state for war is the only member of the Council of Ten not eligible for the position. The '''States-General is a temporary legislative assembly of 300 elected deputies, vested with the exclusive authority to review and amend the Instrument of Government. Its promulgations are irrevocable, cannot be overturned by the States of Conti and cannot be subjected to a referendum. The States-General hold the plenitude of legislative power during their lifetime, the duration of which cannot exceed 90 calendar days. Law-making powers revert to the States of Conti upon the dissolution of the States-General. International treaties negotiated by the Council of Ten and ratified by the States of Conti lay beyond the purview of the States-General. The power to convoke the States-General is the sole prerogative of the States of Conti. The document ascribes six basic functions to the civic authorities: *Dispense justice *Preserve the public peace *Uphold the inviolability of private property *Enforce contracts *Maintain civic amenities *Administer finances Conti operates a single taxation system to finance its public expenditure in the form of a value-added tax capped at a maximum rate of 30 per cent. The universal impost is collected from businesses every 20 days (a collection cycle). A higher level of taxation is rejected as being confiscatory and inimical to the public interest. The imposition of extraordinary taxes is illegal unless sanctioned by a majority vote of the States-General. The bailiwick does not levy import duties and does not have a central bank. There is no state monopoly on the issuance of currency; private commercial banks are free to issue their own notes (hence the profusion of designs and denominations encountered in Conti – only the vertical format of the notes and the list of security features are consistent across issuers). Conti’s legislation on citizenship is governed by the jus sanguinis principle. Citizenship is acquired at birth if either of the parents is a citizen of Conti. In effect, political participation and the exercise of citizenship rights in Conti’s overseas dominions are restricted to residents of Conti descent. Naturalisation can only be granted by a private act of the States. Although Conti's institutional arrangement and form of government is representative in character, the Instrument of Government allows for a degree of direct democracy. Citizens can challenge or propose legislation via referendum if a public petition is signed by a fifth of all registered voters. The right to vote is restricted to adults age 20 or over who fulfill the property qualification – defined as owning a property or ƒ1,000 in business capital. The New Guildhall is the seat of government and the nerve centre of the administrative machinery of state. New Guildhall is employed as a metonym for the complex of municipal government buildings occupying the site of the city's old Guildhall, the former headquarters of the merchant guilds. The new communal regime purchased the vacant building and redeveloped the site after the abolition of the guilds on 28 February 2009 – itself the momentous event in the aftermath of which the bailiwick's institutions acquired their present character. The Seal of Conti, which is used (alongside electronic seal stamps) to authenticate state documents and give force of law to enactments of the States upon their publication, is kept in a separate building within the New Guildhall. Ceremonial responsibility for the seal passed from the president of the League of Water Merchants to the chancellor as a result of the replacement of the hitherto guild-based constitution with the Instrument of Government. The bailiwick's shield of arms is a ubiquitous feature of the city's streetscape, adorning municipal buildings, street furniture and public infrastructure. The blazon of the arms is: Gules, a horse courant argent. The flag of Conti is composed of a red cross on a field of white (the time-honoured symbol of civic freedom) upon which is superimposed a gold cross, the former heraldic device of the League of Water Merchants whose president was traditionally the chief magistrate of the city under the old regime. The blazon of the protector's shield of arms is: Argent, a cross gules. By convention, past and present holders of the office are not allowed to marshal the protector's device with their personal arms. State-chartered Companies The Company of the Orient (COR) and the Company of the Occident (COC) are mercantile companies established by an act of the States of Conti on 5 June 2009 to encourage long-distance commerce. Both corporations possess a charter of privileges issued by the States guaranteeing special trading rights with territories lying respectively east and west of the prime meridian. The legislator did not grant monopolies within exclusive trading spheres. In fact these spheres are not exclusive at all, rather they delimit the geographic extent over which the companies enjoy privileges conferred on them by the States for the duration of their charter. These privileges include fiscal exemptions aimed at stimulating the growth of trade in raw commodities and securing continuing access to energy supplies, the right to maintain a military force, make war and peace (at their own expense) and conclude treaties independently. The chartering of trading companies was conceived as a temporary device to kick-start Conti's overseas commercial expansion and is not destined to become a permanent feature of the bailiwick's economic policy. Ships and vessels operated or owned by the Company of the Orient are allowed (by special dispensation) to sail under the company’s own flag rather than Conti's merchant ensign. Since 14 August 2013 the company is also allowed to fly its distinctive crimson and gold flag on land in territories under its administration. The company of the Orient's shield of arms is a variation on the bailiwick's heraldic device: Gules, a horse rampant argent. The Company of the Occident, for its part, has not requested permission to use a distinctive flag for its ships, preferring instead to fly the merchant ensign. The COC's blazon is: Argent, on a canton gules, a horse courant argent. On 27 August 2011, The Company of the Orient obtained patents from the Council of Ten to undertake the colonisation of territories. The COR is the only and supreme authority in its subject territories under the sovereign supervision of the States of Conti. The Company of the Occident secured similar arrangements on 20 September 2011. It would take until 30 December 2016 for the COC to acquire its first territory overseas with the purchase of the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy (17.90°N 62.83°W) from the king of Sweden for ƒ458,600. Piracy originating from the island of Bali (8.20°S 115.00°E) reached alarming levels by the second half of 2011, dangerously disrupting the COR’s trade with the Indies and driving marine insurance rates upwards. The Directorial Committee (the company's board of directors), having recently secured advantageous patents from the Council of Ten, dispatched a naval squadron of four warships to the region on 2 December 2011 (frigates Nemesis and Themis and destroyers Titan and Leviathan) to patrol Indonesian waters and secure company shipping with the Indies. The COR’s private expeditionary force stormed north Bali’s main port, Sangaraja, on 14 January 2012. A systematic campaign of land conquest ensued culminating in the removal of local potentates and the subjugation of the island to company rule. The sister-islands of Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Penida and Nusa Ceningan fell in quick succession. The company had served notice that it would not allow anyone to injure its commerce. At a stroke, the acquisition of this first permanent base for its long-distance colonial commerce in Asia transformed the Company of the Orient from mercantile arm of the Conti thalassocracy into an imperium in its own right. By contrast, the account of the Company of the Orient's presence in Singapore (1.30°N 103.80°E) is one of cooperation rather than confrontation with the titular lord of the land. It is under the aegis of the sultan of Johor that the COR established a factory at the mouth of the Singapore River on 27 June 2012 which laid the foundation for the company's commercial penetration of the Malay peninsula. In exchange for an annual tribute of ƒ144,000 (the ufti) and numerous off-the-books gifts to the court of Johor and the temenggung (the sultan's chief minister), successive chief factors have gradually extracted from the sultanate a series of privileges and franchises collectively known as the capitulation agreements. The first capitulation accorded on 31 December 2015 guarantees company ships free and safe passage through the Strait of Malacca. Through the second capitulation, the company secured extraterritorial rights for its merchants and employees within the confines of the trading post. Despite opposition from the Chief Factor of Bali, the company relocated its operational headquarters on 3 April 2017 (the Directorial Committee remaining in Conti) from Singaraja to Singapore which had by then become the axis of its Asian shipping network and its most profitable trading post with its strategically located deep-water harbour commanding the maritime routes between the mother-city and the Far Eastern markets. COR ships were regular visitors to the Bay of Bengal and the Malabar Coast. Yet after a decade ploughing the trade routes of Asia, the company had failed to make inroads into the coveted Indian market. The Singapore precedent had brought home the advantages of establishing a secure base of operation in faraway markets. It was the model the Company of the Orient was keen to replicate in the subcontinent. Years of relentless lobbying eventually paid off on 1 September 2018 when the nawab of Bengal granted a leasehold title to the company over 125 heactares of land on the right bank of the Hoogly river near Chandannagar (22.87°N 88.38°E). The company's surveyors and engineers swiftly moved in to erect a rectangular walled compound 1km wide and 1.25km in length on the site. (Upon taking office the first Chief Factor of Chandannagar set about demolishing the compound's defensive walls in a bid to foster amicable relations between Conti merchants and the population of the city). Back in Conti the Directorial Committee hailed the deal as a breakthrough although the nawab had stopped well short of according the prerefential tax tarrifs and judicial immunity the company's agents had been angling for. Privately, directors were keenly aware that the company's fortunes in Bengal hinged precariously on the goodwill of the nawab, his retinue and his counsellors. The long-term goal of the company was to establish itself as the country's dominant foreign trading partner by extracting favours from the central political figure in the land. To that end, the Directorial Committee sent a set of instructions to Singapore on 8 September 2018. It also reads as a wish list: a chief factor was to head the new concession in Chandanngar, agents were to be posted in Kolkata, the nawab was to be assured of the company's friendship, merchants' property rights were to be protected and trading privileges were to be sought. What was unprecedented was the extraordinary latitude given to the chief factor to play the political game to attain these goals in the manner he saw fit. The nature (and cost) of the service or benefit the company could provide was a function of the risk and the prize that could be extracted. This could take the form of gifts, punctual financial assistance, a moderate tribute (as in Johor) or military support against the nawab's local ennemies (either by sending military advisors, lending artillery or through active warfare in a regional conflict as an ally). An agent of the COR in the Middle East acquired the Manishtushu Obelisk (ca. 2340-2200 BC) in the summer of 2018. The company had intended to send the obelisk (a four-sided black diorite stone covered in cuneiform script) to Conti as a gift to the States. When the Long War broke out, the artifact was instead shipped to Chandannagar for safekeeping. The Council of Ten conducted in 2017 an interim review of the chartered company experiment then in its ninth year. It concluded that only the Company of the Orient was thus far an unqualified success. It is hugely profitable and has fulfilled all the promises of its charter, building in the process a commercial and territorial empire of its own. It is a competent administrator of its subject dominions and an effective vehicle of the bailiwick's Far Eastern diplomacy. Not that the company was immune to criticism. The review was scathing in its assessment of the Company of the Orient's business practices.That the company had a natural bend for monopolistic rent-seeking had been painfully obvious to the business community in Conti from the onset. Its charter gave it a built-in advantage that made it difficult for rival commercial ventures to compete in the distant markets that the company was opening to Conti trade. It was for example only after the Council of Ten had threatened to divest the chief factor of Singapore's of his plenipotentiary powers, that the company had agreed to lobby the sultan of Johor into granting all the merchants of Conti privileges similar to the kind already enjoyed by the company's agents. The company's track record made it inopportune to renew its charter on its current favourable terms. The fiscal exemptions and the special trading rights would have to be revisited. The Company of the Occident is in many ways the mirror image of its sister company: it is chronically in the red and appears mired in a state of stasis. The COC's original plan to establish colonies in the Saint Lawrence basin floundered when the impetus of colonisation took root in the African New Settlements instead. The review was more nuanced in its assessment of the youngest of the three state-chartered companies. The Brittany Company did succeed in establishing a functionally effective administration but is still beset by conflict (incidentally exacerbated by the Council of Ten's occasional meddling) with sections of the old corporate elite unreconciled to foreign rule. By Favour and Permission The Brittany Company (BC) is a state-mandated, joint-stock organisation formed by an act of the States of Conti on 14 June 2009 following Conti's purchase of the feudal rights of the duke of Brittany over the peninsula, which the company rules by favour and permission ''of the States.'' The company's charter of privileges reflects the bailiwick’s reluctance to allocate excessive fiscal resources to support its dependencies by effectively privatising the administration of the old duchy. The act facilitates the transfer of government functions to the Brittany Company for the duration of its charter with an explicit mandate to enact legislation, exercise police powers and levy taxes (the BC administers its own tax system within guidelines laid down by the Council of Ten), thus conferring upon the company quasi-regal powers nominally attributed to the States of Conti. The company's charter is subject to review and renewal after 12 years. The Act of Dissolution promulgated on 21 April 2016 by the States of Conti in their capacity as the true sovereign and proprietor of Brittany, formally abolished the Breton monarchy whose throne had been vacant since 2009 and established the March of Brittany in its wake. Much to the insistence of the Brittany Company, the act reaffirmed the nobility's privileged legal status. The company's intercession ensured that the composition of Brittany's only elective body, the Dael Breizh, would remain unaltered. The States of Brittany, or Dael Breizh in the Breton vernacular, is the highest judicial body in the former ducal lands. The States are composed of delegates from the urban merchant patriciate and hereditary members of the landed nobility. By virtue of the extensive legislative and executive authority conferred by its charter, the Brittany Company has displaced the States and the traditional corporate elite as the prime source of political power in Brittany. For the Dael, which had initially expected from the States of Conti the continuation of their ancient privileges and liberties, the most contentious issue concerns the loss of its hitherto extensive fiscal powers. In particular, the States of Brittany insist that monetary levies ought not to be raised without their prior consent. The question of institutional reform, in substance the issue of self-administration and taxation remains a point of contention between the Breton polity and the States of Conti. Having been deprived of their customary rights of consultation and deliberation with the advent of company rule, the States' powers are confined to the exercise of their judicial prerogatives. The registration of legislative acts with the States of Brittany is a requisite for the validity of those acts. The States of Brittany only retain limited oversight of taxation in time of war. The lingering dispute over taxation came to a head on 11 August 2017 with the adoption by the Council of Ten of a decree ordering the Brittany Company to remit to the TechFund+, for three consecutive years, a sum calculated as one per cent of Brittany's total tax receipts for the year 2016 (thus decreasing in real terms over the triennial period). The annual levy due to be collected from 2018 through 2020 is timed to coincide with the expiration of the Brittany Company's charter. This appropriation of tax revenue (ostensibly to repay part of the outlay poured into the construction of Conti's underground railway system) and the predictable increase in taxation that would ensue, caused universal consternation among members of the Dael, who likened the levy to rent extraction and refused to register the decree in protest. Even the nobility, whose sectional interests traditionally align with Conti, proved resolutely hostile and irreconcilable. As the Brittany Company had forewarned the Council of Ten, the severance of feudal ties between the States of Conti (as sovereign overlord) and the former dukedom brought about by the Act of Dissolution had deprived the States of its only instrument to enforce the registration of new laws. The Council of Ten's options were limited: considerable expense had been incurred for the infrastructure project and financial considerations dictated that the levy had to be paid in full. Withdrawing the immemorial privilege of registration from the body sitting at the apex of Brittany's system of courts or dispensing with the Dael Breizh altogether were politically undesirable. In the end, the Council of Ten's announcement that the company's charter would be allowed to lapse in 2021 did enough to stem the crisis but otherwise left the question of the future constitutional relationship (if any) between Conti and the mainland in the post-company era entirely unresolved. Indeed, when the States of Brittany addressed a formal letter to the States of Conti on 28 November 2017 to press the issue (articulating its own preference for self-governance within the framework of a loose confederation), the response from the New Guildhall was muted and non-committal. On 20 December 2016 the States of Conti passed an act prohibiting Conti citizens from purchasing hereditary landed estates on the mainland, a practice often criticised for antagonising the aristocratic element of the States of Brittany and undermining the republican ethos of the Conti citizenry. Principled citizens, who argued that the act constituted an infringement of the right to property, and therefore a fundamental breach of the social contract between citizens and state, soon launched a public petition to overturn the ban. The bailiwick does not have a court with the authority to test laws against the Instrument of Government or to adjudicate on constitutional disputes. Instead, it leaves it to private citizens to challenge laws deemed contrary to the spirit of the Instrument of Government by drumming up support for a public petition to repeal the controversial legislation. By garnering sufficient signatures to force through a referendum and then winning the contest, the electorate rendered the act of 20 December 2016 null and void. In a complete reversal of policy, the Council of Ten would within the year abandon its long-standing objection to the purchase of rural estates from noble landowners (evidently in retaliation for the nobility's perceived disloyalty during the registration controversy). From that point on, far from pursuing of policy of accommodation, Conti would seek to exploit factional divisions within the States of Brittany to its own advantage. The conferral of citizenship upon loyal members of the aristocratic and patrician elites (for a fee of ƒ725 and the promise to buy property in the city within three years) became the preferred instrument of that policy. In 2017 alone, 21 nobles and patricians were admitted as Conti citizens in this way, six of whom were sitting members of the States of Brittany. A further 11 were made citizens in the first half of 2018. Then, mid-July, the flow of petitions for citizenship ebbed. Conti was at war. Situated at the mouth of the Rance estuary on the northern coast of Brittany, the Free City of Saint-Malo (48.38°N 2.00°W) is Conti's major commercial gateway to its mainland dominions administered by the Brittany Company. Owing to Saint-Malo's prominence as the bailiwick's chief emporium on the continent, the States of Conti declared the city a corpus separatum under the provisions of the Charter of Liberties of the Free City of Saint-Malo conceded on 26 July 2009. The charter institutes a council of 12 elected members, collectively known as the Executive Commission, entrusted with the government of the city under the stewardship of the Provost of the Merchants. The document confers upon the city all powers of self-governance and privileges associated to free city status, including the latitude to determine its own rights of citizenship, and confines Conti’s involvement in municipal government to prerogatives pertaining to defence and foreign affairs. Moreover, the States of Conti renounced their feudal overlordship over Saint-Malo (an article of the charter rendered obsolete by the Act of Dissolution passed seven years later). The States and the Executive Commission agreed an addendum to the charter on 18 May 2017 authorising the intendant-general of the fleet to requisition up to a third of the ships registered in the Malouin merchant marine (amounting to no more than 25 per cent of the fleet's total gross tonnage) into the Naval Service's wartime auxiliary fleet. In exchange, Saint-Malo gained the right to establish its own court of appeal; appeal cases would no longer be referred to the States of Brittany for arbitration. Saint-Malo unilaterally renounced its right to send delegates to the Dael Breizh on 8 September 2017, which in any case it had abstained from exercising for the last eight years. Instrument of War The Naval Service and the office of Intendant-General of the Fleet were established by the Naval Service Act on 8 October 2009. The intendant-general of the fleet, appointed for a two-and-half-year term by the States of Conti, is responsible for overseeing the administration of the navy under the nominal ministry of the councillor of state for war. In practice, the office enjoys pre-eminence in all naval policy matters through the direct administration of military shipyards, drydocks, maintenance bases and the Institute of Naval Warfare (founded on 25 January 2014). The Naval Service's annual budget for 2017 stood at ƒ1.90 million, accounting for 47.78 per cent of the bailiwick's total military expenditure that year (ƒ3.98 million). The Naval Service maintains 27 capital ships in full commission. The Naval Service operates three military ports in the home waters: Conti, Brest (48.23°N 4.29°W) and Lorient (47.45°N 3.22°W). On 21 January 2014 the Naval Service and the Company of the Orient established a joint naval station at the foot of the Table Mountain, north of the Cape of Good Hope. Port Conti (33.55°S 18.25°E) is the bailiwick's only naval facility in the southern hemisphere. By March 2014 the Naval Service had extended its territorial control to Port Conti's immediate hinterland to protect Conti, Malouin and Breton settlers who had illegally begun colonising the coastal plain abutting the westernmost ridge of the great South African escarpment. The Naval Service's policy of territorial consolidation went ahead despite opposition by the Company of the Orient which views Port Conti as a way-station of moderate importance for its Asian shipping and had no appetite for extending direct dominion over the city's sparsely populated hinterland. The COR has since repeatedly declined to extend its involvement beyond the joint control of the naval station and the posting of a small garrison of company troops within its perimeter. As such, the burden of administration of the New Settlements falls solely on the Naval Service. The naval branch of the military is thus paradoxically the largest private landowner in territories under Conti overlordship (with the exception of chartered companies). The first census undertaken on 7 May 2014 recorded 7,062 citizens of Conti, Saint-Malo and Brittany residing in the New Settlements. By the second census of 13 November 2016 this number had increased by 26.05 per cent to 8,902 with for the first time the population of secondary settlements exceeding 1,000 in Er (33.46°S 18.71°E) and Montcalm (34.02°S 20.43°E). The expansion was stimulated by private settlement companies; in the open, high wage economy of Conti, Malthusian pressure played no part in the out-migration to the settlements. The Naval Service's model of administration in the New Settlements is an experiment in minimalist government confined to the functions of law and order; the administration of civil affairs is left entirely to individual settlements which are free to enter contracts with one another. By mid-2017, 19 such bilateral or multilateral treaties had been ratified between the autonomous polities of the New Settlements to address concerns of common interest (water management, rural policing, boundary disputes) and articulate a collective response. Er, Montcalm and Vannes (32.75°S 18.00°E) going as far as creating an inter-settlement court of arbitration to adjudicate contractual disputes arising between them. Seen in this light, the cartulary, the collection of treaties between this leading group of settlements, represents a form of proto-constitutional instrument regulating relations between increasingly assertive self-styled republics. Despite the enduring sense of kinship with the mother-city, the settlers' eagerness to embrace from the outset early forms of self-governance for their communities accords with their self-image as societies based on free enterprise, thrift and self-reliance. The Defence Reform Act adopted by the States of Conti on 9 June 2010 created the General Service, the nucleus of Conti’s first standing army, composed of professional soldiers organised into permanent regiments raised, equipped and financed by the States. The act lessened the bailiwick’s over-reliance on civic militia (known as the Territorial Service) and mercenary companies for its defence, reformed the long-standing practice of raising temporary armies of paid soldiers in wartime and abolished the purchase of officer commissions. The Territorial Service, retained as an auxiliary unit of the General Service, is entrusted to support civic authorities in preserving domestic order. Responsibility for military commissions and promotions is assigned to the Council of Ten. However the appointment of the General Service's Captain-General of the Land Forces is made jointly by the Council of Ten and the States. At the States' discretion a committee of deputies can accompany the captain-general on campaign and partake in major military deliberations. The General Service is a proponent of a combined arms doctrine whereby different types of forces (reconnaissance, infantry, artillery, air support, engineering and logistics) are combined within the same formation and brought under a single command to achieve tactical superiority on the battlefield. The Air Service is the military aviation branch of the General Service. The General Service's motto (adopted on 9 May 2016) is: Non inultus premor ('I cannot be touched unavenged'). The General Service adopted the mitre cap (usually emblazoned with the city's shield of arms but not exclusively) as part of its full dress uniform on 21 April 2019. The Intelligence Service, created by an act of the States of Conti on 23 November 2013, amalgamates the previously fragmented intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities of Conti's military branches into a single centralised organisational and command structure. The funding of the Regiment of Brittany (formally the Ducal Regiment of Brittany until 21 April 2016), is a joint-responsibility of the Brittany Company and the States of Brittany. In order to mitigate the effect of rising fiscal pressure, the BC and the Dael Breizh can raise funds necessary to finance wartime military expenditures by jointly issuing war bonds. The regiment is the only component of the General Service permitted to supplement its ranks with hired mercenaries in wartime (in contrast to the Naval Service which makes a liberal use of sailors for hire). The Defence Reform Act of 3 February 2018 was drafted in response to the strategic sea change provoked by Conti’s withdrawal from its former alliance. The underlying rationale of the act was twofold: increase the size and scope of the military while limiting the impact on taxpayers. The initial investment in new material was thus defrayed by the sale of state assets rather than through an increase in taxation. The chief beneficiary of the armament program was the Air Service. The fleet was expanded to 105 aircrafts and reorganised into seven permanent squadrons of 15 aircrafts each. Squadrons No. 6 and No. 7 operate from the Air Service’s new air base in Rennes (48.12°N 1.68°W). As the base shares some facilities with civil aviation, the Air Service is able to recoup some of the maintenance costs by charging a landing fee to commercial carriers. The act made it the duty of the General Service to keep the Air Service at full operational strength at all times. The Naval Service was also the recipient of a substantial investment. This led to a modest expansion of the fleet from 23 to 27 capital ships (two cruisers and two frigates entered service in 2018). By law the fleet can only be expanded beyond that number through leasing arrangements. In other words the act made it possible for privately owned warships to be rented out to the Naval Service and the state. These vessels must comply with contract requirements and technical specifications set out by the Naval Service (displacement, tonnage, speed, sensors, weapons system) to ensure they are interoperable with the rest of the fleet. The maintenance of the leased ships and the recruitment of the sailors are outsourced to the contractors whilst the Naval Service appoints and pays its own officers. In a departure from the convention of naming warships of a similar class with the same last syllable (observed by both the Naval Service and the Company of the Orient), the privately owned vessels commissioned into service are given names starting with the same syllable. Overall, the emergency budget revision approved by the States in January increased military expenditure for 2018 by 46.48 per cent to ƒ5.83 million. The rebalancing of spending in favour of the General Service caused a decrease in the Naval Service’s share of total defence expenditure when compared to the previous year (to 35.26 per cent at ƒ2.05 million). Conversely, much of the increase in the General Service’s share emanated from its aviation branch. The act foreshadowed the renewed interest in military contracting during the Long War. Military entrepreneurs and adventurers would prey on ennemy shipping, launch expeditions, conduct airborne raids, initiate intelligence operations with the understanding that they would be allowed to pocket any profit. As independent irregulars, entrepreneurs are notoriously difficult to control but are valuable to the war effort. In a conflict dominated by attritional warfare, military contracting allows Conti to lower the cost of mobilising resources. The Irregular Bands is the informal name given to the private regiment of soldiers raised once a year by a contractor licensed by the States to do so (under the provisions of the Defence Reform Act of 3 February 2018). The bands are raised in accordance to contractual agreements between a foreign state and the regimental proprietor (after whom the regiment is named). The licence granted to a private contractor to raise a mercenary regiment comes with restrictions. Most importantly, the regiment can only enter the service of a state favourably disposed towards Conti from a list drawn up by the Office of Despatches and vetted by the Council of Ten. The regiment can only be raised if Conti is at peace. The proprietor cannot recruit more than 4,000 soldiers into his regiment (the size of a regiment in the General Service). No more than one regiment can be in foreign active service at any given time. By law contracts cannot exceed 12 months. The troops are forbidden to serve in foreign navies. The contractor cannot recruit soldiers in the New Settlements (whose population is too low) or in Saint-Malo where the Executive Commission has passed legislation barring its citizens (and all other inhabitants enjoying the protection of the city) from joining mercenary regiments. The soldiers’ salaries and pensions are paid for by the contracting state. Lastly the regiment can be recalled to Conti and incorporated into the General Service at the outbreak of a war without compensation to the contracting state or the regimental proprietor. To date, the bailiwick's forces have captured 266 enemy battle ensigns and 302 regimental colours (these war trophies are preserved or displayed at various locations across the city: officers clubs, barracks, naval shipyards, civic associations, societies, museums and various public institutions such as the Institute of Naval Warfare and the State Archives). Technology Procurement Fund The Technology Procurement Act enacted on 1 September 2010 established the Technology Procurement Fund with the mission to stimulate foreign direct investment involving technology transfer and facilitate the acquisition of technology by Conti-based enterprises. The fund is the beneficiary of an annual public contribution of ƒ2.16 million. Its Chief Executive spearheads Conti's technology accumulation drive and reports to the councillor of state for research and technology. The letter of command is the document of reference for technology deals operated or facilitated by the Technology Procurement Fund. The letter addressed to the fund's chief executive is published annually in January by the councillor of state for technology in compliance with the Technology Procurement Act. The document sets out stringent procurement objectives for the calendar year. The 2011 letter, the first of its kind, published on 15 January set a target of 500 technology units per month amounting to a total of 6000 technology units for the entirety of the year, an amount superior to the volume of technology acquired by Conti by the end of 2010. On 10 November 2014 the fund reported the accumulation of an all-time high record of 23,132.19 units of technology. The 2018 letter challenged the TechFund to diversify its procurement sources and alter the pattern of its technology trade which in recent years had been dominated by intra-alliance trade. The fund’s answer was to send trade missions to potential supplier states with the objective of setting up to six permanent tech trade representations overseas. The Technology Procurement Revision Act of 12 August 2013 modified the fund’s governing statutes to address the rising cost of technology procurement resulting from intensifying competition and a dwindling supply pool. As funding requirements for 2013 doubled to ƒ4.32 million – twice the fund’s annual state subsidy, the Council of Ten sought to attract private investment to surmount the rising financial challenges and bridge the funding gap. The revised legislation paved the way for the part-privatisation of the fund and advanced its transformation into a fully-fledged commercial entity contracted with the management of public assets. Under the new arrangement, the bailiwick sold a 49.99 per cent stake in the fund to private investors thus retaining a controlling majority stake. A fraction of the profit financed the rehousing of the State Archives (the bailiwick's central repository of official documents) to a new state-of-the-art, purpose-built facility within the New Guildhall. The second innovation of the act is the creation of Conti's sovereign wealth fund under the management of the Technology Procurement Fund: the TechFund+. The act prescribes that any excess liquidity created by a government budget surplus or proceeds from the sale of state assets be transferred to the TechFund+. Even then, it remains within the States’ prerogatives to sanction extraordinary public expenditure (unbudgeted appropriations) on a case by case basis. Although it has been the adopted practice to restrict these to city beautification initiatives and projects of scientific, cultural or historical public interest. One such occurrence is the purchase on 14 September 2015 of the Selden Map of China for the benefit of the State Archives at a cost of ƒ63,000 to the public purse (an exorbitant sum, equivalent to the cost of maintaining a patrol frigate in active service for 14 months). The State Archives further enriched its cartographic collection on 17 August 2017 with the purchase at auction of a lot worth ƒ70,500 comprising six medieval maps and the oldest surviving pre-Columbian portolan chart: the Carta Pisana (c. 1275-1300). Two-thirds of the monies had originally been budgeted as one time-expenditure by the State Archives for the acquisition of a manuscript edition of the Chronica. When it became apparent that this transaction would not come to pass (despite the benevolent intercession of Ravenspur's ambassador to Conti), the State Archives reallocated the funds to the new project and appealed to the States and private benefactors to cover the shortfall of ƒ10,500 required to match the asking price for the maps. What started as a one-off expenditure for the acquisition of a cultural object would thereafter become a permanent line item of the State Archives' budget, making the purchase of artefacts under state patronage a regular occurrence less reliant on appropriations. The Privatisation Act of 9 February 2017 provided for the separation of the TechFund+ from its parent company and its incorporation into a separate legal entity for the purpose of transferring the business to private ownership. The reform was part of a wider privatisation drive which included in its initial phase the sale of the port facilities and the transfer of the city's two rehabilitation facilities (managing a correctional population of 316) to the private sector and in its closing phase the cession of the airport and the fire service, all of which were satisfactorily concluded by June 2017. This legislation signalled a policy shift towards a smaller communal government after years of bureaucratic expansion. As part of its effort to moderate spending, the Council of Ten adopted on 23 August 2017 a three-year plan to fast-track Conti's transition towards a cashless economy with the total phasing out of the physical currency scheduled for 1 January 2021. Office of Despatches The Office of Despatches is a civil service secretariat created on 10 May 2016 to assist the Council of Ten in managing foreign affairs. It derives its name from the diplomatic missives, memoranda, notes and reports from the bailiwick's emissaries, trade representatives and foreign agents streaming back to Conti for compilation and analysis. The office has since matured from a clerical clearing house into a bureaucratic power-centre within the state machinery, influential enough to shape foreign policy. Conti mostly relies on temporary emissaries to conduct its diplomatic business and as a result only maintains a limited number of permanent diplomatic outposts: *On 10 May 2016 following the establishment of diplomatic relations with Ravenspur, Conti dispatched a resident minister to set up permanent representation in the country's capital, Warszawa. The legation occupies the first floor at 12 Senatorska Street. On 29 December 2016 the Council of Ten approved a secret policy document designed to protect Conti's Baltic trade should Ravenspur experience a catastrophic institutional collapse and cease to exist as a sovereign state (as did Imperial Ravenspur in 2007 after the traumatic events chronicled in the nation's history as the partition). *Conti's first minister to Russia presented his letter of credence to the president of the Russian Federation on 11 May 2016. The legation closed permanently on 12 January 2017, 23 days after Russia had subsumed itself into the revived Soviet Union. Conti's legation in Moscow was located at 1 Petrovskiye Line Street (Петровские Линии улица, 1). The legation's records were eventually deposited at the State Archives on 14 August 2017. *The Company of the Orient's envoy to the Sultanate of Johor, traditionally appointed by the Chief Factor of Singapore independently from the Directorial Committee, is also invested with plenipotentiary authority to represent the Council of Ten. The crowning achievement of the company's diplomatic undertakings in Johor is the third capitulation conceded by the sultan on 17 June 2016 which extends the provisions of the first capitulation to all citizens of Conti and Saint-Malo based in Singapore and the realms of the sultan. Conti and Malouin merchants, whether employed by the company or not, henceforth ceased to be subject to the jurisdiction of Johor courts. Merchants' property (including houses) and assets in Johor are likewise subject to extraterritoriality. Finally, the Company of the Orient was accorded the right to display its shield of arms on company property across Singapore (but not beyond the Tebrau Strait into mainland Johor). Minister is the highest ranking title in the bailiwick's diplomatic service as Conti does not appoint ambassadors. The cost of running a legation abroad is only partially covered by public funds. Expenses incurred for gifts, hosting dinners, entertaining guests and the furnishing of the minister's private quarters are intentionally left out of a legation's operating budget. Ministers are expected to cover the shortfall at considerable personal expense which in turn has led to an overrepresentation of the merchant class in diplomatic appointments. At the end of his term of office the returning minister is subjected to an inquiry into the conduct of his ministry. Whereas ministers are exclusively appointed from the propertied citizenry, one does not need be a citizen of Conti to enter the service of the bailiwick. Experienced foreign diplomats with a keener understanding of local conditions are frequently accredited by the States as emissaries on temporary missions overseas. Nothing better illustrates the office’s pivotal influence in the realm of foreign policy than the libertas memorandum which began circulating among clerks of the Office of Despatches in mid-2017. At first a purely prospective paper, the memorandum (and its two follow-up papers produced through the summer) sparked a profound rethink of the bailiwick’s foreign policy. The paper voiced the disquiet of many state functionaries with the parlous state of inter-alliance politics from which the city could derive neither profit nor advantage. The authors exposed the contradictions of a foreign policy that deplored these developments – and their adverse effects on trade and general prosperity – whilst Conti itself remained a member of an alliance (all the while ignoring the fact that, at the very same time, the Company of the Orient was stirring trouble in Brunei and casting covetous eyes on the sultanate’s rich offshore oil and natural gas deposits). The memorandum investigated the benefits to be had from breaking with the international system of alliances, in particular the opportunity to retool the bailiwick’s foreign policy to pursue independent objectives, unencumbered by alliance considerations. The follow-up papers addressed the practicalities of the transition, chiefly the financial cost of the shift. The disengagement from alliance politics was by itself a proposition fraught with risk and ever more so in an age of heightened international tensions. The most immediate consequence would be a marked increase in military spending and the need to raise revenue. The papers explored these challenges in some depth, some recommendations later making their way to the Defence Reform Act of 3 February 2018. The Council of Ten (correctly) predicted that, other things being equal, the radical reform advocated by the memorandum would increase military spending requirements for 2018 by nearly a factor of 1.5. In itself the memorandum should have not lead to the radical shift in foreign policy that its authors envisioned had it not been vindicated by the unfolding of events in the world, chiefly the abuse of sanctions and the violations of neutrality. By temperament Conti legislators are distrustful of publicly stated doctrines and favour a practical and trade-centric approach to foreign policy; a reform that promised to free the bailiwick from the constraints of alliance diplomacy was seductive. Yet the issue was deeply divisive and the politics very fluid. Many doubted the wisdom of a radical policy shift when the current arrangements had proved largely beneficial to the bailiwick. Others questioned the timing of the enterprise as the political shock waves of the registration controversy continued to reverberate into the winter. But the financial implications of the policy adjustment were central to the dispute. A combination of spending restraint, privatisations, regulatory reform and private finance initiatives had placed Conti’s finances on a surer footing in the past year (the value of assets invested in the TechFund+ surpassed the ƒ50 million mark for the first time in December 2017). There were concerns that all this could now be undone. The inescapable reality was that defence spending would need to be higher and more sustained. No longer would the post-war decommissioning of warships, the disbanding of squadrons and regiments or the selling of surplus equipment be sensible cost-cutting measures. The Council of Ten and the States of Conti were internally split. A majority of the Council of Ten favoured reform while the States of Conti were leaning towards the status quo. As public sentiment gradually shifted, the States acquiesced to the bailiff’s suggestion that the States-General could be summoned to untie the Gordian knot. As the final arbiter of policy the States of Conti were under no obligation to do so. Yet the issue of Conti’s membership to an alliance was so fundamental to its future security and prosperity, the implications of either outcome of such magnitude and the need for a decisive resolution so pressing that the election of the first States-General in the bailiwick’s history became a sensible option. Because Conti’s free association with its erstwhile alliance did not proceed from a treaty requiring the States' consent, the Instrument of Government could not be invoked as an obstacle to the convocation of the States-General. The States of Conti dully convoked the States-General on 28 November 2017 and referred the matter to the newly-elected assembly four weeks later. Per the Instrument of Government the States of Conti then transferred their legislative powers to the States-General. The first States-General thus assembled on 26 December 2017. The States-General met in continuous session until 7 January 2018 (12 days). The deputies issued four promulgations as the result of their deliberations and votes: *The bailiwick’s alliance membership was to be rescinded within 60 days (three tax collection cycles). Conti formally dissolved its 2012 days association with its former alliance on 25 February 2018. *The census requirement for military service was lifted. Male citizens between the age of 20 and 55 who do not meet the property qualification to vote are no longer exempt from wartime conscription (until then only enfranchised male citizens had been liable to conscription). *The Instrument of Government was amended to extend the lifetime of the States of Conti (and the term of office of deputies) from five to seven years. The next elections are scheduled for 2021. *The States-General reasserted the non-renewability of the term of office. This is a key stipulation of the Instrument of Government for it forbids the emergence of a career political class. Since the ordinance of 17 July 2016 regulating civil service clothing, clerks of the Office of Despatches wear a distinctive uniform consisting of a grey frock coat, black trousers and a white student cap. The Long War 15 July 2018 - 19 April 2019. 3 June 2019 - present. Urbs Nobilis Contiae